Grade One Music Theory Lesson 16: Dynamics

Dynamics - or "Volume Control"

"Dynamics" are all about the volume of music - is it quiet or loud, does it increase or decrease in volume?

Static or Changing?

Players need to understand quite a few different words (and abbreviations or "short forms") for dynamics. To make things easier, we can group these words/abbreviations into two categories - static and changing.

A static dynamic means that the all the music should be played at that volume, until another direction is given.

A changing dynamic means that the music should gradually begin to change in volume (up or down) and continue changing until the next direction.

Static Dynamics

We use Italian words or abbreviations to indicate static dynamics.

Piano means "quietly" or "softly", and Forte means "loudly". Piano is shortened to p and forte is shortened to f.

Mezzomeans "half", and it is shortened to m. Usually we translate this as "moderately" for dynamics.

The ending -issimo on a word means "very"- it's indicated by a double p or a double f.

This gives us six possibilities: here they are in order from loudest to quietest:

ff

= Fortissimo

= very loud

f

= Forte

= loud

mf

= Mezzo Forte

= moderately loud

mp

= Mezzo Piano

= moderately quiet

p

= Piano

= quiet

pp

= Pianissimo

= very quiet

Changing Dynamics

Gradual increases in volume are shown either with Italian words, or with symbols.

The hairpin is placed under the score, between the first and last notes which gradually change their dynamic.

(Just in case you were wondering, the instrument which we call the "piano" today, is really called a "pianoforte", and was given that name because it's capable of playing a wide range of dynamics, unlike other keyboard instruments at the time it was invented!)